After considering our non-renewable and finite water supply versus water demand increasing with population over time in Dallas we know that to preserve enough water for the future through governmental means has a cost that public citizens must pay. Here is a snapshot from Texas Water Development Board’s texasstatewaterplan.org showing the water management strategies and the volume of water they are projected to conserve in Dallas, Texas between 2020 and 2070 presented by decade.
Below the water management strategies is the recommended projects serving Dallas, Texas total capital cost calculated by TWDB found on the texasstatewaterplan.org website. You can see that the costs of preventing water shortage through 2070 in Dallas total over $6 Billion that will be funded by taxpayers. The acre-feet totals per decade are 17,663 in 2020, 25,290 in 2030, 56,308 in 2040, 85,522 in 2050, 106,324 in 2060, and 121,355 in 2070.
Together between 2020 and 2070 the amount of water we must conserve or create in Dallas, Texas is 412,462 acre-feet. $6,058,611,907 spent to gain 412,462 acre-feet of water equates to a cost of $14688.90 per acre-foot to Dallas resident taxpayers.
At 325,851 gallons per acre-foot this is the equivalent to about 134 Billion gallons of Dallas water in need of conservation by 2070. So the cost of having water to buy in the future costs Dallas, Texas is about 45 cents per gallon of conservation.
“We buy a bottle of water in the city, where clean water comes out in its taps. You know, back in 1965, if someone said to the average person, ‘You know in thirty years you are going to buy water in plastic bottles and pay more for that water than for gasoline?’ Everybody would look at you like you’re completely out of your mind.”
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– Paul Watson
